· Black and White Thinking (All or Nothing Thinking) | We see ourselves, others, and events as all right or all wrong, all good or all bad, we are either totally successful or a total failure, no halfway measure. |
· Overgeneralisation | We make conclusions based on single events, we use one negative experience to predict all other outcomes. |
· Catastrophising | We presume the worst will always happen, we won’t be able to cope and it will be awful. |
· Mental Filter | We see the negatives and not the positives of a situation, we discount compliments and focus only on bad remarks or reviews. |
· Magnifying or Minimising (Binocular Vision) | We blow things out of proportion making mountains out of molehills, we minimise our strengths and maximise our weaknesses. |
· Personalisation and Blame | When something goes wrong we totally blame ourselves or we may totally blame other people for an event. |
· Labelling and Mislabelling | We call ourselves or others by names, not based on facts, but on one or two negative incidents. |
· Jumping to Conclusions (a. Mind Reading) | We make negative interpretations about what others are thinking without knowing all the facts and without checking things out. |
· Jumping to Conclusions (b. Fortune Telling) | We think we know how events will turn out without evidence to support our views. |
· Emotional Reasoning | We let feelings guide our interpretations, reasoning from our emotions instead of looking for facts. |
· Discounting the Positive | We discount positive things about ourselves and others. |
· Hindsight Thinking | We look back and wish we had done things differently – “If I knew then what I know now.” |
· What ifs | We often ask “what if” something happens, fearing the worst outcome which may stop us from looking at practical solutions. |
· Egocentric Thinking | We want to persuade others to think and believe the same way we do. (This is about us influencing other’s thoughts) |
· Being Right | We think we are correct in our thinking, we discount other evidence and the ideas of others. (This is about our thoughts) |
· Control Error (a and b) | a. We see ourselves as helpless and externally controlled OR b. We feel responsible for everything, carrying the world on our shoulders. |
· Change Error | We think we have to change others to achieve our happiness. We may blame, demand, withhold and trade to achieve this. |
· Fairness Error | We judge peoples actions by what we think is fair or not fair, feeling resentful when they don’t act in a way we think is fair. |
· Heaven’s Reward Thinking | Our decisions and actions are based around others needs, often ignoring our own needs, imagining that by doing the right thing we will gain our reward someday. |
· Unrealistic Comparisons | We compare ourselves to other people, work colleagues etc, and view them as being more successful, better at coping, happier, better at handling life than we are. |
